Category: General Leadership

The Role of a Leader: Performance & Engagement
Communicating with Impact
Cultural Interpersonal Effectiveness

The SME leaders’ dilemma: buying personal development

I know I need development but will I make a good buying decision?

Were you working for someone somewhere and frustrated at how you saw the business being run?  Did you think you could do better and so struck out on your own? You recognise you could be a better leader but are concerned about making a poor buying decision for your development.

Your business is doing OK.  It employs a dozen or more people incurring a monthly salary bill of the order of some tens of thousands of pounds.  Yet, you have a lingering sense of frustration that your people are not doing what you need them to do.

Is the boot now on the other foot with some of your people feeling like you did that you could do better.  The likelihood is that like you were they are probably your better performers and could more easily find a job elsewhere.  Lose them and your business will suffer a marked dent in its performance.  It is not that they are irreplaceable (no one is; you can lose someone to an accident or a lottery win), but they are effective and efficient workers.  What can you do differently as their leader to improve the odds that they will stay?

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Look Who’s Talking

The dread of delivering a presentation dogs many of us. There are few who actually relish the prospect of public speaking. Nevertheless, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to be brilliant. We mustn’t mess up, must be the expert, must be impervious to doubt, and meet any challenge with a flawless response. Intellectually we recognise that these are unrealistic aims but we still pressure ourselves to be perfect. This striving for perfection is not helpful for myriad reasons, not least because it puts you at the centre of every situation; and guess what? You’re not.

Whenever you’re delivering a presentation you are the least important person in the room.

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Merry Christmas 2017

Merry Christmas 2017 to The Leadership Blog Subscribers and Visitors

A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR

To Our Subscribers and Visitors

From The Leadership Coach Blog Team & Authors

Danger, someone’s said, “I love my work!”

Does ‘love’ belong in the workplace? Does it make a positive contribution?

How to be Good at Work

I have had the privilege of knowing Professor Roger Steare for a number of years; he describes himself as The Corporate Philosopher.  His professorship is at CASS Business School.  I admire his work about corporate ethics and values.  It is more important today than when it was started.

He is producing a “live-book” called “How to be Good at Work”.  Roger wrote the original set of chapters.  Subsequently, through a “commons approach”, other people have contributed additional articles and commentary.  As a result of some general remarks I shared with Roger, he asked me to produce a more specific article , which I did.  While he liked the content, my style was too different to his and other contributors for him to accept it.  I didn’t have the time or, admittedly, the inclination to change it.  However, in view of Roger’s positive feedback about the content of my commentary, I thought I would use this Blog to push it out into the public domain.  The topic of love seems fitting for the week before Christmas.

Hopefully, having read my piece, it will prompt you to look at “How to be Good at Work”, contact Roger and expand the conversation he has started.

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More about Space and More about Time

A couple of weeks ago I offered a playful connection between physics and communication. In this post, I intend to offer some insight into how to use Space and Time to improve the quality of our communication.

Before I do, though, it’s worth mentioning that this is tsp-uk’s one hundredth blog. In little over 18 months this community has produced a phenomenal range of content and insight. From the philosophical to the highly practical this space continues to be a dynamic and exciting forum to share ideas. Here’s to the next 100!

Now back to the topic in hand. My intention is not to give a class here, or offer some “top tips” but to explain how these concepts relate to my work and a couple of the ways I apply them in my practise.

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The Communication Continuum

How space and time can transform our communication

What is it that gives other people confidence in you?

What is it that defines you as a credible, confident, authoritative communicator of ideas and vision? Gives you gravitas? Says to people that they should take you seriously?

It’s pretty simple really. It’s all about space and time.

In (not quite) the same way physics brings space and time together to form the space-time continuum, so it is that how we bring together our personal relationship to space and time will define our impact as communicators. A Communication Continuum, if you like. 

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It takes a village…

‏In the short time since I last submitted a blog it seems the world has taken another step along the path to crazy. The scandals of Weinstein, Westminster, and Spacey et al say nothing good about the world in which we live…

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Employment Engagement – A Vicious or Virtuous Cycle?

Building a culture of engagement, although manager carries the most responsibility on it, it goes hand-in-hand irrespective of job level or title – be it a manager, director, president or a janitor. Everyone shares responsibility on the overall group engagement.

Employee Engagement – how do you go about it? Is it an annual event or integrated part of your culture?

Gallup recently published a report stating that only 15% of the global workforce is engaged.

 ‘Worldwide, the percentage of adults who work full time for an employer and are engaged at work — they are highly involved in and enthusiastic about their work and workplace — is just 15%. Though engagement levels vary considerably by country and region, in no country does the proportion of the employed residents who are engaged in their job exceed about four in 10.’

It is undoubtedly a very alarming finding. So, who is responsible to raise Employee Engagement? The common answer is the manager. I do, however, agree about it partially. To me, it is a team effort. Everyone holds responsibility in it and following are my reasons.

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Indispensability, passion and goodness

In our continuous striving to achieve more, do we risk considering ourselves indispensable and seek undue reward rather than give for the greater good?

Many moons ago, I worked on the project that conceived, developed and launched the world’s first debit card.  The initiative was led by a terrific individual, Bill Hislop, now sadly passed away.  I was reminded of his verve and vitality as a leader by the background that appeared on booting up Windows 10 earlier this week.

I remember Bill speaking to a group of new graduate entrants and showing two cartoons.  The first showed a climber atop a mountain peak with the caption, “It’s now how far you’ve come…”  The second showed a broader perspective of the landscape with the climber standing on what could be considered a mere hillock looking out to a Mordor-like mountain range; the caption read, “… it’s how far there is to go.”

The background picture off Windows was this:

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Never Touch a Painting when it’s Wet – A Story About Constant Care…

 

 

This article is about constant care and the maturing process. When I started working in shipping I wanted to work in operational execution.  I applied so many times and never got the opportunity.  I overheard a manager make a comment about me once: “He doesn’t have the required emotional intelligence to work in operations”.  That did not make me feel very happy.  Then I experienced the greatest motivational drive for me, that stubborn feeling when someone tells me that I cannot do something.  It took me years and several applications to finally get to where I wanted to be.  I was offered the wonderful opportunity of leading a team overseas.

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